An End A Beginning
by SilverKitsune1
Summary: The first few days are always the hardest. Your body wants to shut down. The world wants to keep going.


Title: An End. A Beginning

Author: Silverkitsune

Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Static Shock is the property of the WB and all other associated networks and creators.

Robert Hawkins took the steps slowly. His feet were heavy, and his shoes felt as though they were too large somehow.  His legs and arms were thick as though they had been filled with sand, and even his face muscles were tired and weak. It was as though all of his senses had finally given in, taking one final blow before retreating into the darkness to recuperate. It left him hallow and cold. 

In his room he took off his good brown jacket, folding it over, carefully laying it on the bed, smoothing it over with his hands. The tie came next, and he undid the knot letting the ends hang around his neck where they brushed against his shirt front. Grasping one of the ends he slid it off, the sound of silk scraping against cotton loud and grating to his ears. He laid it on the bed with just as much care as he'd given the jacket, then sat down ignoring the snap crackle complaints from his knees as he bent. Off his feet his fatigued was even greater than it had been when standing up. 

The hum of the heater filled the room wrapping the silence in a warmth he didn't feel. Outside the wind slid across his window panes, slipping into the house through cracks and edges. 

With a sigh he adjusted his glasses and bent over, pulling off one shoe, and then the next. The leather was wet from walking through the drifts of snow that currently blanketed Dakota, and he wiped his hands off on the bedspread when he was done. He should have taken his shoes off down in the front hall. 

Picking them up, he folded both jacket and tie over his arm, and picked up the shoes with his free hand went over to the closet to return them to their proper places. His movements were cautious and stiff, but it was appropriate somehow. He felt so very old. 

That done he headed back to the hallway, pausing in the doorway to slide off his watch and lay it on the dresser next to his wallet.

The stairs creaked and moaned underneath his slow pace, his hand ghosting over the railing, and he entered the kitchen to find both of his children in the same spots he had left them only moments ago.

Sharon was leaning against the counter, her eyes red rimmed and dark with anger. She had her hands buried into the folds of her long black skits, clenching some of the cloth in her fists. He had seen this look on Sharon's face only once before, and a wave of gloom washed over him at its reappearance. 

The front door opened and closed with a bang sending a gust of cold wind through the house. Adam entered a brown paper bag under one arm, and he saw the anger drain out of his daughter's face at the sight of her boyfriend, replaced by a look of exhaustion. Adam laid the bag down on the kitchen table, pulled off his winter coat and then slid out of his own good jacket, folding it over the back of the chair.

"I brought sandwiches," he said. Reaching into the bag he slid a sandwich across the table where it landed in front of Virgil who only glanced at the food.

"You should eat something Virgil," Robert said softly.

Virgil didn't say anything, but uncrossed his arms and began pulling the paper wrappings off from around his meal.  

Accepting a sandwich from Adam, Robert slid into the seat across from Virgil. The teenager was pulling the onions off, laying them in a neat pile on the edge of the wrapper. The pickles would come next, he knew that, but it was done with slow tedious movements. Virgil looked as though something inside of him had broken, and just watching him made Robert's heart ache. 

"Virgil," he said gently.

Virgil looked up from his meal. 

Robert felt the words that had been on the edge of his tongue evaporate.

"It's good that you're eating," he finally said.

Virgil blinked, and nodded. Standing, he grabbed the rolled up wrapping and tossed it into the garbage can on his way out of the kitchen.

Robert's ears followed his son's trail, listening as the stairs creaked, the floor moaned, and his bedroom door shut with a click.

~

He woke the next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs.  To his great surprise, it was Adam who doing the cooking and he raised an eyebrow at Sharon who was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee, but didn't comment. 

"Virgil's gone," she said her tone laced with worry. "I checked his room when I woke up, and he was already out. Do you think we should go look for him?"

Adam plunked a large plate of scrambled eggs in the center of the table and slid into the seat next to Sharon. 

"Thanks baby," she said giving her boyfriend a strained smile.

Staring at the eggs, wondering how he was going to manage them when his apatite had still not returned, Robert shook his head. 

"I think we need to leave him alone. If he's not back by dark we'll go looking for him, until then let's give him some time."

~

Almost immediately after breakfast Sharon began to clean. Starting with her bedroom she quickly migrated on to the rest of the house, attacking every available surface with an exhausting intensity. Adam trailed behind her, helping when she would let him, looking worried and unsure of his own actions. Sometime in the late afternoon he finally got her to stop, begging that she take a walk.

_"Just a short one," he'd assured her. __"It's not that cold out yet."_

Robert had given Adam a grateful look as the couple had disappeared out the door.

His own day had been plodding and slow, full of memories and thoughts that ached. He wandered from room to room, did a crossword puzzle that he couldn't finish, organized his sock drawer. When it got late he started dinner, chopping onions and crushing garlic for spaghetti, ignoring that he still wasn't hungry. He even made meat balls, packing ground beef together and carefully rolling each one in seasonings. He understood Sharon's need to do something with her hands. 

The sauce was still simmering, the pasta not yet soft, when he heard the door open and shut a chill running through the kitchen. Someone stamped their feet on the rug and Sharon walked in her hair damp.

"Snowing?" he asked her.

She nodded.

"It's getting pretty bad out there dad," she said worriedly. "I think Adam and I should go back out, and drag Virgil's butt home."

He stirred the sauce, the spoon scrapping against the bottom. Lifting it out, he tapped it against the rim then handed it to Sharon.

"Let me try to find him first. Will you finish dinner? If he shows up before I find him just call my phone."

She looked unhappy, but nodded.

Pulling on his heavy jacket and boots, Robert was about to leave when Adam appeared next to him.

"Yes?"

"The two of them," Adam began. "They used to hang around this abandoned gas station, over on Towanda. It got trashed back in the riots, but it's been dry as a bone ever since. You might want to try there first."

"Thank you Adam," he said patting the younger man on the shoulder before zipping up his jacket and heading out to brave the cold.

The sun had long since retired, and the hundreds of white snowflakes that swirled past him were illuminated in pockets of gold cast over the sidewalk by streetlamps.  Towanda was a good distance away from the house, and by the time he reached the gas station his hands were numb, and his chest ached from breathing in the cold air. Boots crunching through the new snow, he felt relief wash through him at the sight of a familiar head of messy black hair through the gas stations glass doors. 

Virgil was sitting in the center of the room, his back to the door, with what looked like a pile of green cloth laid out next to him. He thought it could have been a shirt maybe a pair of pants, but he was too far away to tell. Whatever it was, his son was focused intently on it, cutting out thin green stripes and laying them in piles at his feet. 

Robert pushed the door open, surprised at the warmth that immediately wrapped around his body. The place was clean as well as heated, with a computer occupying one corner and a tool bench covered in various machinery parts pushed against the far wall. There was even a small fridge. The chill still residing in his bones, Robert walked over to Virgil staring at the room in wonder. He laid a hand on his son's shoulder, and Virgil lifted his head. There was no surprise in his eyes. 

"Virgil, this is amazing," he said.

Virgil shrugged and cut another strip.

Crossing to the other side of the room, Robert sat cross-legged in front of his son. His fingers still numb with cold, he pulled the thick wool gloves off and began rubbing his fingers to work the heat back into them. 

For a while the only sound was the snip, snip, snip of the scissors as Virgil continued cutting. His hands moving as thought they had never been interrupted. 

 "When I woke up this morning," Virgil finally said his voice soft. "I thought it had all been a dream, a phenomenally bad dream." He gave the strip in his hand a hard pull and it tore away with a loud rip. "Then I woke up a little more, and I remembered, and all I wanted to do was go back to sleep." He laid the strip down in the pile he had been making, and started on another. Robert sat watching. 

"It's hard," Robert finally said in response. "I know it's hard."

"It shouldn't have happened," Virgil said sharply. "Someone, someone, I -" he took a shaky breath then didn't speak again.

Robert played with a stray thread on his jacket. The word I rushed through his mind setting off various alarms. God did he need to get this right.

"You're right," he said. "It shouldn't have happened. But Virgil, it happened so fast. No one could have done anything."

Virgil looked up from his work suddenly, the scissors silent.

"Don't say that."

"But it's true," Robert defended. "There was no time. It all happened so fast, no one could have moved that fast."

Virgil laid both cloth and tool onto the ground.

"I could have."

His eyes hard, Robert looked up to meet his son's gaze.

"No. Don't. There was nothing you could have done."

Jumping to his feet, Virgil shook his head, hair flying in all directions.

"You don't understand."

"How could you even think that?" Robert continued calmly. "You weren't even there, and even if you had been, there was nothing you would have been able to do."

"NO!" Virgil snapped his voice rising. "You don't understand!"

Getting to his feet, Robert fought for the words that would make his son see.

"What? What could you have done against a man with a gun? Tell me that Virgil."

"I could have done this," Virgil shouted. His arm shot out and a streak of lightening sailed from his finger tips. It wrapped around Robert's glasses, yanking them off of his nose, and depositing them into Virgil's waiting hand.

He froze. "Oh my God," he breathed.

But Virgil wasn't finished. 

"I could have done this," he cried and the lightening in his hands grew longer and thinner until he could swing it around his head like a lasso. He let it sail through the air looping over a nearby chair then gave the lightening a vicious pull. The chair slid across the floor smashing into the opposite wall.

"I could have even done this!" 

He raised his hands into the air, drawing power to them until the light grew brighter and brighter, blinding Robert and lighting up the entire gas station. With a grunt he leaned back, and then let his arms fly forward the ball of lightening sailing over Robert's head destroying the work table behind him.

"And I can do more than that," Virgil said his voice loud, his hands trembling. "But don't you get it? It wouldn't have mattered what I did because I would have done something."

 "Oh God, Virgil," Robert said. "Does anybody know about this?"  
"He knew," Virgil wailed. An odd look passed over his face, and he began to back away. He shoved his fists into his eyes, but Robert could see the tears running around them and down his face like two small rivers. "And mom, mom knew, but I couldn't save her either."

"Your mother? Virgil, you're not making any sense, you need to calm down."

Virgil just kept backing away, stopping only when his back hit the wall. "You don't understand, you can't understand." His whole body shuddered, and something that had been held back finally broke loose.

Robert moved then. Crossed the room in three long steps and grabbed his son by the shoulders, pulling him into a tight hug.

Virgil didn't pull away, but he didn't respond either. He stayed stiff and still, and it felt as though he had grabbed hold of a wooden statue. Then slowly he felt arms slid around his back, and a head press against his chest. 

"It's not fair," the teenager sobbed. "It's not fair."

Robert Hawkins didn't say anything. Just held on. Even when the sobbing had slowed and there was nothing more then deep shaky breathing, he held on. 

~

It was hot for October. The summer months before had been devoid of rain, and the grass underneath Virgil's feet was dry and yellowed.  It always felt odd walking through it, disrespectful and wrong somehow, but his destination was more important then his discomfort and he ignored it. 

"Hey Ritchie," he said sliding down onto the ground. "What's up?"

Virgil reached over, brushing his fingers against the front of the tombstone. It was warm.

"Sorry I haven't been around for awhile, but things have been crazy," he said chuckling dryly. "You have no idea."

He picked a few blades of grass from around the stone, and rubbed them between his fingers. It was always good to give his hands something to do.

"Only a few things to tell you," he said with a sudden grin. "But they're all pretty cool. Like you're never going to believe this, but Frieda and Daisy came out. As in of the closet, as in together. It does explains why Daisy suddenly stopped wanting to go to movies with me, but damn my jaw almost fell through the floor when she told me. Frieda's parents are, well you know Frieda's parents. They threw the two of them a coming out party. Must be nice to have ex-hippies as parents when you have to tell them something like that.  Daisy's folks are a little less then thrilled, but I think they may come around. At least they haven't thrown her out of the house or anything stupid like that."

Virgil moved his legs, and ran his hands through his hair. This was better then it had been in the beginning, but not easy.

"Brought you something," he said hand disappearing into the pocket of his jacket, emerging with a pair of oval shaped glasses held between his fingers. "Remember these?" he said with a grin. "You got grounded for a week for losing these. I found them when I was cleaning my room." Virgil laughed. "Yeah, I know hard to believe. Dad came in to wake me up a few weeks ago, and sprained his ankle when he tripped over my Playstation.  Somewhere in the mist of all of the swearing I picked out that he wanted me to start cleaning. Don't worry though, the Playstation's ok."

He ran his fingers along the wire frames. One of the lenses had been cracked and the other one was completely gone, but they were still in one piece.

"I know it's not flowers, but I have this feeling that you would be kick my ass from beyond if I left you roses or something like that. I know your mom comes around a lot though, so I'm just going to leave the flower giving to her."

He laid the glasses down on the ground, then leaned forward and began to dig a shallow hole at the base of the tombstone.

"Robin's been hanging around here lately," Virgil said. "You never got to meet him, but he's a pretty cool guy." He tossed the last handful of dirt out of the small hole. "He says he wants me to join up with some group he's got going. Said he thinks I'd fit in real well. I thought about, but it would mean leaving Dakota for a while, and I don't know if I'm willing to do that." Picking the glasses up, Virgil placed them gently into the hole, and then began pushing the dirt back over it. "My dad's not too crazy about it either. I'm not sure if things have gotten easier now that he knows I'm Static because I don't have to sneak around anymore or harder because now he's always worried."

Virgil smoother his hand over the dirt, then brushed his hands off.

"If I went," he continued. "I would have to tell Sharon about the whole super hero thing too. Seeing as how she almost had me that one time, she'd be impossible to live with if she found out she'd been right. I was also kinda thinking about telling your parents about everything you did. Being Gear, doing the side kick superhero thing, but I'm not sure how they'd take it. I'd have to start with your mom and see how that went first. To be honest your dad still freaks me out."

Rubbing the last bit of dirt off on his jeans, Virgil stood. 

"I've got to get going Ritch, but I'll be back soon. I'll let you know what I decide." 

He gave the tombstone a pat and then headed home.


End file.
